Numerous commercial organizations have deployed or have plans to deploy commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software for their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Government agencies also have an interest in incorporating and using such systems in day-to-day operations. These enterprise systems include finance, payroll, inventory, shipping, receiving, personnel, and logistics.
ERP system suppliers range from SAP, IFS, Oracle, and a host of other smaller suppliers which focus on specific logistics capabilities. Many ERP vendors are moving to the Internet with web based graphical user based interfaces that enable an internet web browser to host the capabilities of the ERP system. The use of COTS software offers a low technical risk solution, proven and tested by commercial customers where customers drive new functionality and the market price. COTS software vendors bear the risk and cost of implementing upgrades and fixes while spreading their cost over the entire user base.
Commercial software packages are often marketed as offering an easy-to-use and intuitive user interface, formal training, and documentation refined through years of customer use. In-house support staff requirements for the end user should also be reduced as COTS products are designed to be operational out-of-the-box and ready to use.
While the above described scenario is desirable, the reality of COTS products becomes apparent as users discover the complexity and cost of business process blueprinting, configuration, customization, deployment, and day-to-day operations. A general industry solution often does not align well to the terminology, business processes, and work artifacts of a unique or highly specialized business. COTS user graphical interfaces usually take the form of generalized tables and forms, using data, terminology, and units of measure designed by the ERP application engineers. FIG. 1 illustrates a representative distribution system graphical screen that might be used by a variety of business entities or organizations.
The ERP solution requires the extraction, translation, and load of industry specific information into the ERP proprietary data schema. Business process and functionality gaps between the general and specific work domains require configuration and customization which can jeopardize upward compatibility to the next release of the COTS system.
A simple schema change by the COTS vendor can have a tremendous ripple effect through deployed systems. Often companies which have been successful deploying ERP have adopted the out-of-the-box product with no to minimal customizations. If customization is too costly, users face an economic and resource problem in closing the gap between their perspective on the work domain and the general functions provided by COTS products.
Once a company or organization has invested in, converted, and deployed a COTS ERP system, end users have little choice but to adapt to their new work domain. Ideally the COTS application user interface should present information to the end user in a familiar form. However, this is generally not the case.
Users at times need to spend a good deal of time training to become experts with the ERP application and user interface. The degree of this expertise is directly proportional to the productivity of the user.
In many military positions, users may spend twelve to eighteen months before promotion brings a new role, ERP, and user interface challenges. In the military work domain there simply is not time to become an expert before promotion, deployment, or war.
Human beings will adapt work techniques when faced with complex and difficult to comprehend computer application user interfaces. This adaptation can range from homegrown tools, spreadsheets, reversion to pad and paper, or data entry when time permits. Users must often make mental transforms between the work they know and the synthetic work domain of the ERP user interface. There is thus a need for systems and methods, independent of COTS products, software, or legacy systems which can provide friendly and familiar visualizations for decision support.
Known types of Work-centered Support Systems (WCSS) are built upon the premise that a system that provides the user with the right information at the right time and in the right format will provide a real and substantial benefit. What constitutes the right information, the right format, and the right time will almost always depend on the objective of the user and will often depend upon the user himself. These information needs are often dynamic, particularly in relatively open-ended work domains such as maintenance planning and operations, in which equipment status and resource availability are uncertain.
Since WCSS are tasked with predicting what will be most helpful to the user in a given context, WCSS software in this domain will usually be model-based. Predictive models of work in general and the particular work domain in specific must exist before the relevance of information can be evaluated. Models of user behavior in general, of users playing specific roles in this work domain, and of a user's personal preferences are also necessary to enable tailoring of information content and presentation.
One known form of WCSS is publicly available and downloadable from sourceforge.net under the name of “Adaptive Work-Centered Interface Technology” (ACUITy). See also, “Adaptive Work-Centered User Interface Technology” by Andrew W. Craps publ. May 11, 2006, Jena User Conference, and “An Ontology-Based Architecture for Adaptive Work-Centered User Interface Technology,” Aragones et al., May 11, 2006, Jena User Conference both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
ACUITy software architecture embodies two different concepts. The first concept is to use model based architecture to characterize a work domain in terms of “work-centered” activities, as well as, the computation mechanisms that achieve an implementation that supports those activities. The second and equally important concept is to provide adaptive interaction, both user directed and automated, in the work-centered characterization and presentation mechanisms of the user interface to decision support applications.
In the WCSS domain of the ACUITy software, presentation objects, and vantages are of interest. A presentation object captures the “what and how” of displaying a certain set of information to the user. Types of presentation objects include: two dimensional graphs, scrolling tables, text (including html and plain text documents as well as hyperlinks), display groups, external web applications, and user interaction objects such as forms, text entry fields, buttons, and various selection mechanisms (lists, check boxes, radio buttons, etc.).
A vantage is a “window” into work domain information that provides the user with the particular perspective needed to solve a problem or problem set. More formally, a vantage is the collection of presentation objects that are relevant for a particular problem. The type and set of display object sets the base presentation style, the user may, of course, modify its look and feel unless precluded from doing so by ontology restrictions.
Useful as WCSS can be in general and the features of the systems such as the ACUITy software in particular, they do not address the above noted problem of customizing pre-existing, general, enterprise management software systems, or, pre-existing custom software systems directed to a particular problem or environment.
There is a need in decision Support systems to use the work context of the user to personalize the user experience within these COTS software applications with data external to the COTS application framework. Current approaches to this problem would involve developing a custom GUI that would integrate the COTS standard software displays with external data of interest. This type of solution introduces what might be problematic modifications in or additions to the COTS software which detracts from the advantages of using that software. Similar problems are present in trying to incorporate additional information into legacy software systems. There thus continues to be a need for systems and methods which can automatically combine personalized work content of the user with one or more graphical displays generated by another preexisting, or, publicly available software system.